The Guardian

the community he was. He was a Viet Nam veteran. He was a government employee, on and on about what a wonderful person he was. It made him sick to his stomach. They had briefly touched on his criminal past. They stated only that he had been in trouble with the law. His record, expunged because of certain circumstances. It was likely the verdict, given erroneously exonerated of all his past offenses. The poor man had been given a pardon. The news wouldn’t give a hint of the vile, worthless piece of shit that he really was. They made him a victim. That’s okay. It was only a matter of time.
    Here, in this courtroom, now in the current trial that was playing out before him the young girl sat on the stand. Her eyes filled with tears. The fear she felt for that terrible horror that sat there glaring at her. At the table in front of her was her father. Steadily staring back at her, the father sat motionless. The Guardian couldn’t see his face. His back was to the spectators in the courtroom, but he knew. He’d seen it before. That’s why it was so hard for young children to be used as witnesses. It was the same thing for rape victims. The hardest part was the testifying. Our society has made them feel as though they are the guilty ones. They believed it was their fault these things were happening to them. It was the fear and intimidation that made them unable to do the right thing. “And justice for all...” Bullshit!
    No matter what the guarantees you gave them, they knew the truth. It didn’t matter that what they said was the truth. They would have to go home with the evil that they lived with and it would only be worse.
    “Now, Melissa” The prosecuting attorney was saying. “Didn’t you tell us that your father, this man here” he was pointing to the man at the table now, “regularly beat, fondled you and abused you and that’s why you have the bruises and scars that you have?”
    The young, blonde haired, blue eyed little girl, all of eight years old sat there, motionless. Her eyes glued to her father. You could see the fear on her face. Even as far back as he was in the very last row, the Guardian could almost smell her fear.
    “Melissa, please speak up” the judge encouraged her to answer.
    “Well, um, he’s not really my daddy, but we have to call him that.” She stammered.
    “Yes, I see” the prosecutor added, “Let the record show that the man seated behind me is the legal stepfather not her biological father.
    “So, now we understand that he’s not your biological father, meaning he married your mother after you were born. Didn’t he put the bruises and scars on you from the beatings you got from him?”
    Her eyes still glued on the man at the table. “Well, he does spank me when I’m bad, and I know I deserve it, but I wouldn’t say that he beats me.” Murmurs fell over the court room; the Judge pounding his gavel had to quiet everyone down.
    The prosecutor was stunned. He didn’t know what to say. It was a complete reversal of the statement that they had gotten earlier. He shook his head, knowing full well that pursuing any further testimony would be useless. Because of the girl’s age it would be impossible to prove anything now. The intimidation from her stepfather was stronger than any jury. She had simply rendered herself an incredible witness. Without her testimony or the testimony from her mother, they had no case.
    And so it went, on and on. When it was done, there simply wasn’t enough evidence to convict on a felony charge. Even the medical people who had given testimony about the scars that they presumed were burn marks from cigarettes or other similar devices were speculation. The child admitted she got burned playing with matches with her brother. She knew it was wrong and deserved a spanking.
    You could see the frustration in the prosecutor. The child had obviously spilled her poor little heart out, privately, behind closed doors away from her evil stepfather. Now, here, with the man sitting there staring at her, you could smell her fear. You could see it in her eyes. It was like the beatings and the abuse. Surviving was the only thing that mattered. If not telling them the truth meant her surviving another day then that’s what she had to do. There wasn’t one single person in that courtroom that had seen anything. No one who had was willing to testify out of fear of retaliation.
    Melissa was developing a skill that would be a pattern for her for the rest of